Experts studied cuts on the tent of tourists during the investigation
Start here. In the winter of 1959, 9 students and graduates of the Ural Polytechnic Institute disappeared in the north of the Sverdlovsk Region. In the middle of the night, the guys, for some unknown reason, cut open the tent and left it urgently, not having time to put on shoes and clothes. They died in the bitter cold. The circumstances of that tragedy are still unknown. Special correspondents "Komsomolskaya Pravda" followed the route of the "Dyatlovites" and found out interesting details
RADIST'S STORY
In Ivdel we met with Lyubimov Vladimir Alekseevich, who worked as a radio operator at that time. At the end of 1958, Vladimir Alekseevich, together with his wife, was sent to winter under the mountain Yaruta. It is 200 km north of the Dyatlov pass. In the summer, geologists near Yaruta were looking for minerals and left several tons of explosives for the winter. Vladimir Alekseevich was supposed to guard this good to the warmth and report on his affairs by radio. And not long before that, a spy was exposed in the village of Saranpaul in the Subpolar Urals. He had a walkie-talkie. And at night, leaving the house supposedly to work, the spy passed on secret information to the enemies. His wife suspected the fact of treason and wrote about it to the party committee. The comrades began to watch him for depravity, and inadvertently exposed the spy!
- After that, - Vladimir Alekseevich recalls, - all of us, radio operators, were ordered to listen to the broadcast and report any suspicious negotiations. And now, in January or February, it's hard to say, I trace the broadcast on different waves and hear some very strange negotiations in an unintelligible Aesopian language. It is only clear that something terrible has happened. Of course, I reported to my superiors. And a day later I get the command: stop wiretapping on this wave! But I was curious, and I secretly began to listen further. I remember what they said - we can't find two. We are looking for two more …
- Maybe it was about four? - we clarified, since the bodies of four were found only in May.
“Perhaps,” he thought, “what was said about four. Now it’s hard to remember … When I returned from wintering, I found the radio operator who was transmitting all this. That was my friend Yegor Nevolin. I asked him to give details. But Nevolin replied that he had no right. There were times of secrecy then. I think the guys were exposed to some kind of poisonous gases. Other corpses were found with foam in their mouths, which indicates poisoning.
MANSY IS NOT TO BE GUILTY
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From Ivdel, 150 kilometers north in the village of Ushma, the Mansi tribe lives. In 1959, their ancestors were the first to come under suspicion of killing tourists. According to the investigation, the Mansi hunters could, for some reason, including religious ones, kill intruders. The hunters were tied up, but after a week all suspicions were suddenly removed from them. The prosecutor's office investigator Lev Ivanov (now deceased) in the perestroika years gave such explanations on this score. They say that an experienced dressmaker, Baba Nyura, accidentally entered the police station, where there was a cut-up tourist tent. I saw that tent and said: so it was cut from the inside! Experts later confirmed, and, therefore, Mansi had nothing to do with it …
In our opinion, this is a very strange excuse. In addition, the head of the Dyatlov Group Memory Fund Yuri Kuntsevich has such an opinion about the cut. A person standing outside could pierce it with a knife, and, moving the blade towards himself, ripped open the tarp from the inside.
The investigators could not help but understand this. Why was the Mansi released so soon? No, we are not going to suspect taiga hunters. It only seems that a command came from above: to release the aborigines, because up there, they knew for sure that the Mansi were not to blame.
GOT SHOOTED AND LIVE
Mansi settlement Ushma. Regular buses do not go here and there is no electricity. Until recently, there was a prison zone here, but during the restructuring the convicts were released, and in their place the Mansi people were resettled from another taiga village, which burned out. Solid huts, baths, storage sheds were built for the fire victims. In general, the Aboriginal people were surrounded by excessive care and were given decent pensions. Cunning businessmen immediately flocked here. The Mansi, as representatives of the taiga tribe, have the right to beat the beast without any license. Therefore, there was a brisk exchange of furs and meat for surrogate alcohol, videos and tapes with porn. Particularly successful in this field in the 90s were visiting businessmen - father and son. Old Mansi men have repeatedly begged them not to carry alcohol and porn. However, they did not listen to the old people and once disappeared on the road to Ushma. But their work was soon continued by others. Then someone burned the bridges across the rivers on the road to Ushma. But the merchants have armed themselves with powerful off-road vehicles and are now fording rivers. So, because of drunkenness and other harmful civilization, little of the Mansi remained …
In addition, a road goes through the Mansi settlement to the famous pillars on the Man-Pupy-Ner plateau, and tourist buses at the Uralov base stop in Ushma. The carriers generously endow the Ushmins with alcohol, increasing their mortality.
We tried in Ushma to find out something about the death of the Dyatlov group and about the Mansi hunters whom we suspected. But the old residents are gone for a long time, no one remembers their stories. The current ones assume that a strategic missile flew over the "Dyatlovites" and burned oxygen. Therefore, the gasping tourists ran down the slope, where they froze …
One young and drunk man Misha with a crippled cheekbone asked to inform the public that the Mansi were not to blame. Not that they have an upbringing to go to mokruha!
This peasant, as we were told, one of the grateful hunters brought ten liters of alcohol last winter. After three days of drinking, he developed a fever. He grabbed the gun, shot himself in the chin and fell down dead. The drunken men dragged him to the storage shed, covered him with a canopy, deciding to bury him afterwards. And while they went to fill the grief. But Mikhail, having lain in the severe frost for a couple of hours, regained consciousness, got up and fell with a drooping jaw right into the house …
The Ivdel drivers warned us that the Mansi are very hospitable and like to treat all visitors with food. But there is nothing to eat, since the village is on the site of a prison zone and almost everyone here, including children, suffers from tuberculosis. And visiting doctors - according to the program of treatment of small peoples - allegedly also whip here, taking advantage of neglect, and not a fig do not treat …. We politely refused the treats and went to the Dyatlov pass.
On the way to the Dyatlov pass on the bank of Auspiya, we met the expedition of Yuri Kuntsevich, the head of the Dyatlov Group Memory Fund. There were 16 of them, loaded with backpacks with tents and food, axes and chainsaws, metal detectors and gas burners, guitar and photographic equipment. And 72-year-old Valentin Yakimenko was still carrying a box of sand and cement (10 kilos) to repair the monument to the dead "Dyatlovites".
There are 14 kilometers from Auspiya to the pass. But we were moving along swamps and windbreaks with curved paths with a heavy load for two days. Valentin Yakimenko told how in March 1959, as a student at UPI, he participated in the search. They walked with their comrades in a chain at the foot of Mount Kholatchakhl, pierced the snow with pins, hoping to find the bodies of four not yet found "Dyatlovites". Then, among the students there was an opinion that their comrades were victims of an atomic explosion. But they saw no melted snow or other traces of the bombing.
However, the prosecutor's office investigator Lev Ivanov, who was in charge of this case, told the media afterwards: “When in May we examined the scene with Maslennikov, we found that some young trees on the border of the forest had a burnt trace, but these traces were not concentric or a different system. There was no epicenter either. This once again confirmed the direction of a kind of heat ray or strong, but completely unknown - at least to us - energy, acting selectively."
The late revelations of the investigators are very interesting, which we will talk about later.
LABAZ
… Finally, we got to the place where the tourists of the Dyatlov group had their last night before the tragic ascent, where they built a storage shed in order to climb Otorten relatively lightly. True, the head of the expedition, Yuri Kuntsevich, has big doubts that the storehouse in this place was made by the "Dyatlovites". In his opinion, the cache with food could have been built by other people in order to confuse the investigation. This was indicated by products from army warehouses and cans of stew in … a cardboard box. It is really incomprehensible why tourists should carry a box with them?
In the morning we went to the place of the tragedy. The distance is two kilometers, but the long climb of 25 - 30 degrees tortured us pretty much. The "Dyatlovites", apparently, skied here for a long time and in serpentines. They came to the place of their last camp, obviously very tired. Researchers have no consensus regarding the location of their tent on Mount Holatchakhl. On the slope, several places marked by man-made monuments are scattered hundreds of meters from each other. In 1959, the place of the tent was not clearly marked. So the researchers are now wondering: where was the tent?
KURUMNIKI
Yuri Kuntsevich led us to the place of the "Dyatlovites" tent, marked by the monument. This is where Mikhail Sharavin pointed out to Kuntsevich, who was the first to find the tent in 1959. But if we compare with the view on the photographs from 1959, then it seemed to us that this place is somewhat shifted to the south relative to the landscape in the photo. And this is very important! If the "Dyatlovites" at the hour of the tragedy went into the forest from here, then they moved along a relatively safe area. The fact is that many kurumniks descend along the slope of Mount Kholatchakhl. These are such stone streams, laid out by nature with rough cobblestones. In many places, kurumnniks have cliffs from half a meter to a meter. If you come back, you will be crippled, and seriously. If we assume that the tent of the "Dyatlovites" was located somewhat to the north (as we see in the photo), then the tourists, going down to the forest, should get to these kurumniki,not visible in the night. They could stumble and fall on stones from a height of one meter. This can explain rib fractures in two people and cranial injuries in two others. But … if you fall on the curtain walls, there should also be, if not fractures, then severe bruises of the limbs. And everyone's hands and feet are intact.
From the tent at the moment of danger, the group walked one and a half kilometers to the saving forest. In front of the forest, the tourists overcame two ravines with deep snow, and they made a fire near a large cedar.
It is interesting that even now this cedar has charred branches. According to Kuntsevich, these are the same ones from the "Dyatlovsky" fire. The cedar itself is dignified and strong. We even took some mature buds from its branches.
Correspondents set up their tent at the place where the tent of the "Dyatlovites" was located in February 1959
“I was 12 years old,” Kuntsevich told us, “when the Dyatlovites were buried in front of my house in the cemetery. My two older brothers then studied at UPI. And the dead were well known. I was at the funeral. This tragedy has been etched into my memory forever.
But it's not a fact that this misfortune with the guys happened exactly where their bodies and tent were found. In addition, it is unrealistic to overcome the distance from the tent to the cedar in winter in complete darkness with bare feet. Perhaps tourists have become victims of some circumstance. It can be technogenic tests, and a clash with the military … There are sea versions. There are more than 60 of them in my archive. Every year we spend the night in a cold tent, in winter, with strong winds. This is normal for sports tourists. Therefore, everything that the rescuers saw here was rather a staging.
Valentin Yakimenko, a search participant in March 1959, shows where the cache with food was found
HOW DANGEROUS WITNESSES HAVE BEEN TAKEN OUT?
The "clash with the military" version, as we were told, was especially popular among ordinary people in the first years after the tragedy. The implication was that the tourists became unintentional witnesses of some very secret tests. It was believed that they could see how some kind of weapon was being practiced on the local convicts … And allegedly for this reason the tourists had to be removed … Let's leave this without comment for the readers' judgment. But the version is interesting as an indicator of public confidence in the authorities at a time when ideology shouted from all corners that "the people and the party are one!"
- But how to explain, - we asked Kuntsevich, - not far from the cedar there is a snow hole in a ravine and a flooring of branches at the bottom of it? This shelter was clearly made by the "Dyatlovites"?
“It’s also doubtful,” he replied, “that the guys could have dug a big hole with numb hands, cut branches. The pit with the flooring was more likely built by other people - as an identification mark for dropping bodies from a helicopter.
“But a lot of people should be involved in such a performance. All of them could not keep such a terrible secret until the end of their lives. Others would surely let it slip …
- Most likely, a very limited circle of tall people knew the truth, and the rest only performed the task. The same pilots might not even know that they were transporting corpses … Why is there so much nonsense in this business? There is, for example, an interview with pilot Georgy Karpushin, who assures that on February 25 he found a tent and two corpses next to it. And students Sharavin and Slobtsov officially found the tent only on February 26, and they did not see any corpses there.
THE STORY OF PILOT KARPUSHIN
We will begin this part with an excerpt from an interview with the pilot Georgy Karpushin, published in AiF-Ural in 2004, which stirred up people who believe that the military killed the tourists. And then they portrayed an accident.
“… On February 25, the weather was just wonderful… About 25-30 km before the mountain, we very clearly made out a tent, which adhered to the eastern slope… We made several visits. It was clearly seen that it was cut from the north side. Near the tent, with its head towards it, lay a corpse, judging by the long hair - a woman's. Another body in the distance. It struck me that the tent was improperly set up, on a slope of about 30 degrees, open to all winds and rockfalls … This mistake became fatal for them … We fixed the position of the tent on the map and contacted Ivdel, received the command to return … I can say so as I saw the bodies of the deceased that they were of a natural color, and not orange, as they later argued … Apparently, the Mansi, seeing that the tourists climbed close enough to the sacred places, decided to frighten them. After the students left the tent in panic, the rest was done by the cold and the fractures received by the guys when they ran down the mountain …"
Isn't it strange: Karpushin believes that an incorrectly pitched tent on a steep slope is a fatal mistake. And at the same time he thinks that the tourists were driven out to the death of the Mansi. In the pilot's story, it is doubtful that they saw the tent almost 30 km away. Far too far! Or is it a typo? Why does the pilot talk about body color? They were not naked. Or did he see their faces? And the slope there is not 30 degrees, but about 15.
So, did pilot Karpushin see the tent and two corpses next to it on February 25? Or is it confusing something? Indeed, according to the criminal case, student Mikhail Sharavin was the first to see the last refuge of the "Dyatlovites". And with comrade Boris Slobtsov, they entered the tent even before the investigators. There were no corpses in the tent or nearby. In the opinion of the supporters of the "cleansing" operation, Sharavin and Slobtsov were brought to the place of the staging. We met with Mikhail Sharavin himself, and this is what he said.
This was the tent of the dead skiers Sharavin and Slobtsov. Everything indicated that the guys had prepared for dinner and overnight.
MEMORIES OF SHARAVIN
- On February 21, we, experienced tourists, were gathered and sent in search. In Ivdel, we were joined by two guides. One was a forester, this is Pashin. And the second, Cheglakov, seems to be a firefighter. But it can be assumed that Cheglakov was also a KGB officer. I'll talk about that later. The search was complicated by the fact that the Dyatlovs did not leave route books, we did not really know their path.
On February 23, we flew by helicopter to survey Mount Otorten, where the group was heading, but the pilots, for some reason, did not take us there, dropping off in front of the Lozva valley, where we spent the night. And in the morning a plane flew in and dropped a pennant with a note that the Mansi in the lower reaches of the Auspiya found one of Dyatlov's parking lots. And that we should go there. So on the 25th we went to the barely noticeable Dyatlov ski track. We spent the night in this place. On the morning of the 26th, Slobtsov and Pashin and I went to the outlier, where the ski track disappeared. Probably, the "Dyatlovites" were met here by a strong wind. They decided to spend the night in the forest and went down south to Auspiya, where a storage shed was later found. Then Pashin began to show us in the direction of Otorten. He said that there is a hole where snow falls are possible. We went there. Then I noticed the corner of the tent sticking out of the snow. Pashin is already tiredand together with Slobtsov we ran up to the tent, saw an ice ax, skis at the entrance. The counter was also visible there. And the far one was dropped. And most of the tent is covered with snow. We took an ice ax, cut firn snow in the center of the tent and tore the canvas.
WHERE DOES ALCOHOL COME FROM?
- Tell me, there was a flashlight on top of the snow on the tent, as it is said in the case?
“I don’t remember. When we opened the top, we saw a stove at the bottom of the tent, closer to the exit. There is firewood inside it. At the bottom there are quilted jackets, backpacks, blankets. The boots lay against the wall, at the head. Apparently, they lay with their heads on the slope. And the saw was inside, and the buckets were at the entrance.
- How were they accommodated with all this belongings: buckets, saws, axes? Would it be logical to carry buckets outside the tent?
- There was a snowfall, so they brought everything in so as not to overwhelm. The location was. We, 11 people, were accommodated in the same tent.
- Where did the flask of alcohol come from?
- Yes, it was difficult for students to get alcohol then. But in their group there were two comrades from the side who had opportunities. Parents identified this flask. Krivonischenko's parents, in my opinion. And the second flask in the tent was filled with coffee. She, too, was identified by her parents.
- Were there any tracks near the tent?
- There was a strong blow nearby. And further, five or seven meters away, we saw footprints. They walked from the tent down towards the forest.
- Why didn't you immediately follow these tracks?
- It was useless. If there is nothing in sight, then after such a long time it is necessary to search in detail.
- Here in the footsteps they write different things. Either nine pairs, or eight?
- We did not consider, but the fact that the tracks were located in a chain, as if in a line, was evident. And there were footprints in boots, and left by a toe, and a footprint in felt boots.
- Footprints in boots - one or two boots on your feet?
- It seems to be one. We have not studied them. But it seems that they did not run, but walked calmly.
GLOWING BALL
- What could have happened?
- There is a trail of a white spot on the walls of the tent, which was captured by the last picture of their camera. On this wall of the tent they were photographing from the inside - the light was so clear, white, as if some kind of light radiation from outside, this, I think, is an emergency, which led to the tragedy. A photo camera was found inside the tent. Then this tape was seized by the investigator Ivanov. After his death, Ivanova's daughter gave us these pictures.
- It turns out that the tourists sat down to dinner before spending the night, and suddenly - a certain bright light through the canvas. Did they photograph him first?
- Most likely, it did not develop so quickly. They had time.
- On the mountainside there are such stone ridges - kurumniki. Could they be injured there in the dark?
- I think that the place that the researcher Borzenkov defines as a tent place is overstated. In my opinion, the tent was located to the south and closer to the outlier. I intuitively identified this place in 2002 when we flew there. Then he refined Maslennikov's azimuths, he gave approximate azimuths. And according to these approximate azimuths, it even appears much closer to the outlier. Therefore, they should have gone to the forest just to the right of the kurumniks.
- On the 26th you found the tent, then what?
- On the 27th we with the search engine Koptelov approached this place. And they began to move away from him in the direction of the cedar. Most of the snow was hard. Therefore, their traces are not visible everywhere.
- Where did the guys get such injuries?
- If they left the tent not injured, then on the way to the cedar they could not get such injuries. Therefore, the injuries of those four cannot be explained otherwise than by the intervention of unauthorized persons in the area of the cedar. Indeed, with such injuries, they could live no more than ten minutes, and then in a state of agony.
We will continue our conversation with Mikhail Sharavin about the traces of unknown persons at the scene of the tragedy in the next part.